They could never catch up, mainly because of cost factors. The Atari Lynx was released in September 1989, while Sega’s Game Gear and NEC’s TurboExpress came a year later. Nintendo introduced the system in Japan in April 1989, three months before selling it in the United States. Game Boy had the advantage of being the first on the market before other major competitors. “They did one function and did it well, but that was it. “They were usually one-offs,” Robarge says. They were fun but had one basic drawback. Many, like the Mattel Auto Race in 1976 and Mattel Football in 1977, used LED lights to simulate movement and action. There were electronic handheld games before Game Boy, but they were rudimentary in design and limited in choice. The unique feature that made this possible was the cross-shaped button, also invented by Yokoi, that allowed players to move characters around the screen with ease. It also explained that the game was designed to be held in both hands and played using the thumbs. “A hand-held electronic game machine for use with attachable/detachable memory game packs wherein the game machine includes a case of a size which may be held by a hand …” patent 4,542,903 was assigned to Nintendo Company, Ltd. He then worked with Satoru Okada and the Nintendo Research & Development team to refine the idea, which was patented in the United States on September 24, 1985.Įntitled “Hand-Held Game Apparatus,” U.S.
Gameboy dmg video portable#
He got the idea for a portable gaming system after watching a bored businessman playing with an LCD calculator. The handheld gaming system was invented by Nintendo’s Gunpei Yokoi, who also created the Metroid video-game series. Game Boy sold 1 million units in this country in a few short weeks (total sales would reach nearly 120 million worldwide in all iterations by the time its run ended 16 years later).Īn original 1989 console is featured next to early cell phones, PDAs and pagers in a display at the National Museum of American History's “American Enterprise” exhibition. When first introduced in the United States 30 years ago, Nintendo’s new concept took the gaming community by storm. However, it was durable and inexpensive to operate since it didn’t burn through batteries like its competition. The 8-bit system looks dated by today’s standards: small screen with dot-matrix graphics in black and white-actually four shades of gray-green. Game Boy used interchangeable cartridges, like the home consoles, so you could play different games.” “There were others before it, but they were mostly one-function systems. “Game Boy was not the first handheld gaming system, but it was certainly the most popular,” says Drew Robarge, a museum specialist at the American History Museum. An original 1989 console is featured next to early cell phones, PDAs and pagers in a display at the “ American Enterprise” exhibition. Now, players could take their games anywhere and play them to their hearts’ content-or at least until they ran out of AA batteries.*īecause of its cultural importance and economic impact, Game Boy has a prominent place at the Smithsonian’s National Museum of American History in Washington, D.C. market on July 31, 1989, it unleashed the power of video games in a transportive way. When Nintendo’s handheld unit exploded on the U.S. The 8-bit system looks dated by today’s standards.
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